So what would a reasonable and prudent person believe, Iran and the NIE or Bush?

That's an odd question. Only a blithering idiot would believe Iran's statements without a lot of other evidence. Remember, according to the NIE they had a covert nuclear weapons program for years while insisting it didn't exist. The NIE? Better than Iran, but in 2002, an NIE told us Iraq was building nuclear weapons. In 2005, they said the same thing about Iran, and used exactly the same levels of confidence in making those claims as they are in making the current ones. Bush? Over Iran and the NIE? I guess we have to each decide that for ourselves.

With a certain amount of sarcasm I would suggest that you may have some knowledge not available to the NIE which allows you to argue with them. I think you are under some obligation to see that the proper authorities receive it.

Not that hard. Israeli intelligence is sticking by its guns on Iran still seeking weapons, and frankly, over the past few years, their record looks a bit better than that of our intelligence agencies. The U.N. nuclear agencies have, over the past twenty years, accumulated enough egg on their faces on proliferation and covert nuclear programs to feed breakfast to a regiment.

And aren't you the one who keeps pointing out all the obvious warnings on 9/11 that everybody and their cat seemed to see except the "proper authorities?"

But if you don't, the preponderance of evidence is that Iran wants nuclear power and is not working on nuclear weapons.

Really? A few weeks ago your position was that Iran never wanted nuclear weapons, and it was always about electricity. I've noticed you've firmly ignored the part of the NIE that shot that little illusion to hell and gone.

Your definition of "preponderance of evidence" is a bit odd, since it seems to currently consist of a single document from a source that has not exactly distinguished itself for accuracy in the past.

I do know that France and England are still pushing for sanctions, and while I haven't heard what their intelligence sources are telling them, their governments haven't changed their positions.

I'm surprised you aren't suggesting bombing charcoal kilns

There's a small difference between charcoal and U-235. I wish the only things our enemies had were spears.

We could go into this in detail, including comparisons of bomb and reactor requirements, and the techique of diverting reactor fuel into bomb enrichment centrifuge operations to avoid the inspection focus that processing fuel out of a commercial reactor would get.